Sufferer My Introduction, Medical Trauma And More

[ButransGirl]

Hi. I have a few traumas and I'm tormented hourly by the recent one.

This August, i suffered from anoxia- loss of oxygen for a significant amount of time. I was clinically dead and revived, and suffered multi organ failure. I woke up to being restrained in the ICU breathing through a ventilator. After i could breathe on my own, i had to relearn how to to walk, talk, use my hands, swallow again. It wasn't too bad being completely impaired, except that i didn't know i had free will and could refuse things like my daily heparin shots in the belly. There are 3 parts of this experience that haunt and torment me. Waking up on the vent, i couldn't move my hands or legs. I was hurting... Badly. I was starving. I had a fever and was coughing non stop. The suctioning of my lungs was so painful as i had sepsis! Oh so painful. I wasn't given cough medicine. I was only given Tylenol for my 101° fever. I couldn't talk, nurses were cleaning me when i soiled myself and nurses were constantly sternly telling me not to try and pull out my tubes. I didn't know where i was or what was wrong with me. All i knew was that i was suffering profusely and nobody was helping me or caring.

I suffered many injuries while in the hospital. Nerve damage that needs surgery from fighting restraints. they restrained're bc i was trying to pull out my tubes. Why couldn't they sedate me? Then i wouldn't need surgery and i wouldn't have these vivid flashbacks! I have bedsores that are still healing 7 mos later. I was never given cognitive therapy, Pt, or referred for follow up care. I have more issues now that weren't related to the reason i went in for. they stripped me off all my medicines for narcolepsy and chronic pain, much more. Now i can't get back on pain medicine that works!

the third part is that I wasn't transferred to an acute rehab, so after i could barely walk, the hospital tried to send me home with my parents as my guardians and they refused. Paperwork was filed to make me a ward of the state! My own parents threw me out like garbage while i was retarded and just recovering from a coma. I never felt like they loved me and now its proven. While that was in the process, i had to stay at the hospital, and with the next couple weeks, i passed the cognitive evaluation with flying colors, they cancelled the paperwork, and i was allowed to go home by myself. but i can't stand thinking about my parents. I'm so angry! I hate their guts and Never want to see them again. I want to move accross the country but i can't afford it.

I struggled with PTSD from being coherced into sex at 13, and again at 21. A few days after the event at 21, i attempted suicide. It was a few years later that i developed PTSD from being a passenger in a head on collision where i watched my friend almost die before my eyes. By the grace of God, the attachment and flashbacks from those events were severed in my newly damaged brain. I can have sex without being scared and my only issues with the accident are that I'm hypervigilent in the car. The newest event though, has made me an angry, irritable person. I get so angry! I rant. I obsess. I get homicidal fantasies that i wouldn't act on. I'm distraught and scared and am always going back to feeling helplessly tied to a bed breathing through a tube with nurses coming in and hurting me.

 

[intothelight]

@ButransGirl Welcome to the forum!

 

[oasis2003]

@ButransGirl welcome to the community

 

[Mytime]

Welcome to the forum. I can see your in pain. We are all here to listen,
Are you in therapy? To help you with, how you are feeling. Sending hugs if you expect them.

 

[ButransGirl]

Thank you. Yes, I'm in therapy.

 

[Mytime]

That is great to hear. I can hear your pain in your words. Just know your not alone. We all have different reasons for our pain. But pain is pain, and not feeling alone can help a great deal.

 

[ButransGirl]

Very true. Thank you for hearing me, i mean really hearing me. I was told by a social worker after this incident that i needed to stop obsessing about nurses wiping my ass and how embarrassed i was bc many ppl get in a medical situation where they need help like that. I was too cognitively impaired at that point to make her understand that that wasn't the point, that the point was that i was too retarded to walk to the bathroom myself or even know i needed to go. many ppl who get a surgery still have all their faculties... I was a 32 year old woman who couldn't do the simplest of things to care for myself, things so simple that I'd already learned 30 years prior! She didn't get that i had PTSD from waking up as an invalid. At least the psychiatrist did...

 

[Mytime]

I can understand you getting pissed. Feeling judged by someone, who more then likely never experienced what you did.

Just know, no judgement here. The people on this forum are so supportive.

 

[Chava]

Welcome! I had similar traumas, just in reverse order...medical, major breathing traumas when younger, also suicide attempts after later assaults (abuse also in between). Have you ever done any kind of therapy for your traumas? Have you heard of Somatic Experiencing? I wonder if an approach like that might be helpful with the recent trauma. Traumas do sort of pile up. I notice when I'm triggered in one way, it can sort of meltdown into a re-experiencing of a few traumas simultaneously. It's exhausting to unravel. Take care to make time and space to de-stress right now, allow yourself safe outlets that feel helpful for the anger and stress.

 

[ButransGirl]

I can understand you getting pissed. Feeling judged by someone, who more then likely never experienced wh...

Thanks! I've met one already that talked down to me, but whatever, it's the internet after all!

This social worker definitely did not go through what I went through. She must've had some type of back surgery or something in the past and thinks she's been in exactly my spot. It was also partly my fault that I focused too much on complaining about my anxiety over nurses cleaning me up, instead of the fact that I meant the whole ordeal was horrifying and that tiny piece of it felt extremely degrading. But in my defense, I still wasn't thinking straight when I saw her. I still had huge spots showing up on my brain MRI at that point. While I knew I was embarrassed and upset about what happened to me, that's just the one tiny thing that I chose to explain, because that's the thing I was obsessing about at that point. A couple months later, I got over that. Then I started realizing the extent of the hospital neglect and started focusing more on what they did wrong, not what they did that was part of their job. Then again, that was also a piece of it, bc they were not cleaning me up every time they should've... And then there's the whole part where my parents almost got me sent to a home... (oh man, I would've been their first escapee!)

My anger is consuming, and while it is justified, I also think it's a product of my brain injury. I have major sensory issues stemming from this injury, and I feel like it also heightened my anger response and reduced my tolerance for angry thoughts. Life is an overwhelming experience when the signals in your brain have to be re-routed around parts of it that were damaged to connect point A to point B (if that makes any sense to you. I'm talking of neuroplasticity and the new connections one's brain has to make as a result of understanding and experiencing the world after severe brain injury). It's a lot of work and it's tiring!

 

[ButransGirl]

Welcome! I had similar traumas, just in reverse order...medical, major breathing traumas when younger, als...

Hi, no, I will have to look that one up! I did a woman's trauma IOP program last year for a few weeks. I wasn't really at the same speed that the group was tailored to, and my problem at that point was more my mood disorder. The whole program just frustrated me bc it wasn't the right fit for that time period. However, that IOP would absolutely be life saving for me now. I have a bad taste in my mouth from the last time, so I think I might look around to see what other facilities have trauma programs that will take me on with charity care after I get some cognitive rehab. And maybe I might just suck it up and go back to the old place. I might even be put into a different type of PTSD program than I was in bc I am no longer depressed, and that would be wonderful. Thank you for the suggestion bc I'd been considering it as well.

I'm going to have to force myself into a daily schedule of mindfulness/meditation and physical therapy at home, because I can't just sit around suffering and neglect to do everything in my power to help myself.

 

[Chava]

I'm going to have to force myself into a daily schedule of mindfulness/meditation and physical therapy at home, because I can't just sit around suffering and neglect to do everything in my power to help myself.

Sounds good, though instead of thinking of forcing, is there something you feel like you could easily do more regularly this week? Like 1-2 things? I walk almost every day. Then I also do some PT and/or meditative things, but usually don't fit all of it into every day. And some days also just allow laziness. But when I was really falling apart a few months ago (had been in ER a couple times within a month...not cool), I really did get myself busy with finding and using spiritual or meditative practices that felt grounding or supportive. So I had a strong burst of attention to that need and now am doing better in that area. Sometimes we need to feel that push from the inside!